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Tanner EDA and IC Mask Design Collaborate on Tools to Accelerate Analog Layout Design

MONROVIA, California – March 2, 2010 – Tanner EDA, the catalyst for innovation for the design, layout and verification of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) and IC Mask Design, an industry leader in the provision of physical design services to the global semiconductor industry, are collaborating on the development of a toolset to accelerate analog layout design. By exclusively licensing IC Mask Design’s patented layout acceleration technology and integrating it into Tanner EDA’s custom IC design suite, the partners will offer engineers an improved solution to boost layout productivity and quality.

Tanner EDA and IC Mask Design have been working together since 2007. In the course of working with customers to better understand their analog layout design challenges, the partners recognized a need to speed up the analog layout process. In Q2 2010 Tanner EDA will offer a breakthrough toolset based on IC Mask Design’s proprietary technology that accelerates and semi-automates physical design activities to improve productivity. The new tool will embed seamlessly into Tanner EDA’s powerful and robust layout editor. Designers will be able to automatically generate devices and structures that are silicon-aware and are contextually tuned for their own specific layouts. This new solution gives engineers and managers the benefits of quality and productivity by consistently applying analog layout knowledge and experience to eliminate errors and speed layout cycles.

Commenting on the collaboration, Greg Lebsack, president of Tanner EDA, said, “We are very focused on bringing innovations from trusted, well-regarded partners to our customers, and are pleased to be able to help them benefit from the depth and breadth of IC Mask Design’s experience in analog layout design. This collaboration is another instance of our desire to help analog designers develop breakthrough products with improved productivity and shorter design cycle times.”

Mr. Ciaran Whyte, co-founder and CTO of IC Mask Design, added, “We have always been impressed with the functionality and ease-of-use that Tanner EDA’s tools deliver to designers. It has been a natural extension of our working relationship to leverage our joint knowledge of analog layout challenges to further benefit analog layout productivity.”

Previews of the joint solution developed by Tanner EDA and IC Mask Design will be available from March 9th to March 12th in Booth #12 at the Design Automation & Test in Europe (DATE) conference in Dresden, Germany. The partners expect to ship this tool along with Tanner EDA’s next major product release – v15 of HiPer Silicon™ – at the beginning of Q2, 2010.

About IC Mask Design

Founded in 2002, IC Mask Design is a dynamic engineering organization and industry leader in the provision of Physical Design services to the global semiconductor industry. The company delivers services for analog, RF, mixed-signal and digital designs, and provides a range of training courses covering the complete spectrum of physical design.

About Tanner EDA

Tanner EDA provides a complete line of software solutions that catalyze innovation for the design, layout and verification of analog and mixed-signal (A/MS) integrated circuits (ICs). Customers are creating breakthrough applications in areas such as power management, displays and imaging, automotive, consumer electronics, life sciences, and RF devices. A low learning curve, high interoperability, and a powerful user interface improve design team productivity and enable a low total cost of ownership (TCO). Capability and performance are matched by low support requirements and high support capability as well as an ecosystem of partners that bring advanced capabilities to A/MS designs.

Founded in 1988, Tanner EDA solutions deliver just the right mixture of features, functionality and usability. The company has shipped over 33,000 licenses of its software to more than 5,000 customers in 67 countries.

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Starting at 25 cents, TI’s new MSP430™ MCU Value Line gives 8-bit developers up to 10X performance and 10X battery life

DALLAS, TX (March 2, 2010) – Committed to solving the growing performance and efficiency challenges of the 8-bit market, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced the MSP430 microcontroller (MCU) Value Line that offers superior 16-bit MCU performance and industry leading ultra-low power consumption at ultra-low 8-bit MCU prices. Starting at 25 cents, the Value Line ensures 8-bit developers no longer need to sacrifice performance, power efficiency or scalability because of price. The roadmap includes more than 100 MCUs to be released over the next 15 months, providing developers with a broad portfolio to best fit their memory, peripheral and packaging configuration needs. The new MSP430G2xx devices are code compatible across the MSP430 MCU platform, enabling easy code migration and upgrades to higher-end devices as application requirements evolve. The new MCUs are also supported by TI’s easy-to-use MSP430 tools, free software and broad third party support network, driving faster time-to-market across a broad range of cost sensitive applications, including safety, security and touch sense. For more information, please visitwww.ti.com/430value-pr.

Key features and benefits of the Value Line

  • Up to 10X performance, including true 16 MIPS operation, and 50 percent greater code density, driving increased headroom for functionality over low cost 8-bit MCU solutions
  • Five power modes with ultra-low standby power of 0.4 microamps  and <1 microseconds wake-up time enable 10X battery life over 8-bit solutions
  • Integrated intelligent peripherals, such as 10-bit ADCs, UART, comparator and serial communication, offload CPU tasks for increased power efficiency
  • First 27 MSP430G2xx devices are immediately available to order and include up to 2KB Flash and 128B RAM and future devices will include up to 16KB Flash and 512B RAM
  • $20 tools and integrated development environments feature full compatibility across MSP430 platform
  • Value Line roadmap offers MCUs with integrated capacitive sense optimized I/Os to enable very low cost touch pad implementations 

Pricing and availability

The new MSP430G2xx MCUs are priced from $0.25 for 100K units. Samples can be ordered today at www.ti.com/430value_estore-pr. More than 100 devices will be introduced through 1H 2011.

TI’s broad portfolio of MCUs and software

From general purpose, ultra-low power MSP430 MCUs, to Stellaris® Cortex™-M3-based 32-bit MCUs and high performance, real-time control TMS320C2000™ MCUs, TI offers the broadest range of microcontroller solutions. Designers can accelerate time to market by tapping into TI’s complete software and hardware tools, extensive third-party offerings and technical support.

Find out more about TI’s MSP430 MCU Value Line by visiting the links below:

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun.  A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through design, sales and manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries.  For more information, go to www.ti.com.

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